4d ago

Help with racing mechanics

My players have been working on a racing plot for a while now. I’ve generated a node based map that will be the course they’ll navigate with some interesting things along the way. We’ve built them a Mad Max style vehicle and I’ll be using a modified set of rules when engaging with the other racers. And they’ve even made a arch rival of another racing team.

The only part I haven’t figured out is how to run the other racers behind the scenes. I don’t really want to do a full simulation of 20 contending race teams, but I want to be to give my players updates as the race progresses so they can feel the pressure of competition.

I’m not opposed to cheating like Mario Kart and doing a little rubberbanding. But I want something quick to resolve at the table. I’ve also thought about pre-generating the race and then the players would run through it like a scripted event. I’m just worried about how to dynamically adjust if they take out some of the other racers.

Has anyone run a race at their table before?

13 comments

Personally I really like how Savage Worlds Adventure Edition handles Chases, the rules for those are pretty nice and open-ended, allowing for combat or pure racing. If you need it to go quicker, you can do what it calls "staged encounters", which is basically a vingette where at each stage of the race you present a problem, ask how the players will resolve it, and determine how well they do with a single roll of the appropriate stat/skill, then you divert them along one path or another based on how well they did and/or what they did.
Anyway I find those rules are generally adaptable to basically any system
- I looked at the sample on DriveThru which had just the first page of chase rules. Seems to be based on a series of events through the race. It seems like a fun way to randomize a race, but does address the problem of a large number of racers.
To answer my own question, based on all the responses, thank you everyone, here’s what I’m thinking.
Get a number of different colored d20s, one for each race team. At each leg of the race roll them all on the table for the players to see. Any 1s are automatically knocked out of the race, they had some catastrophic failure. Any 20s get a marker to indicate some great success or inherent skill that will grant them a bonus later.
Then in the final portion of the race I’ll take the three teams with the most markers and put them in scene in direct competition with the Players. I’m thinking this will allow my Player’s to go hunt teams that are doing well to take then out before the final leg if they want and let them see how dangerous their competition is.
Do you have long action mechanic? A classic way for chase is to stack success until you reach a threshold, in that context cheating is a way to use other skills than drive/run to gain success.
- I’m not sure what a long action is, but the players won’t be confined to just race mechanics. They’ll be able to cheat if they want. Or come up with novel uses of resources to leverage advantage.
  
  Some systems have the possibility to stack up success to meet a long term, the most famous example would be blade in the dark clock, but I believe Vampire has it too, like a players rolls 3 success and 10 are needed to do something so player keep rolling until the line.
  For a race it's then easy, you need let's say 15 succeses, the pilot roll drive, the other party member can roll any other relevant action. Let's say pilot does 3 success, mechanic does 2. While the NPCcrews do 6, 4,4 2.now the party is in second place of the race, and time for a second round...
I would treat it as any other situation PCs don't control - as a story
Instead of rolling or resolving anything prepare a bunch of occurences that would make you feel the setting you are using. And depending on the flow of the story ATM, either choose the more dramatic ones or the more mellow ones
If you don't want to run it purely as gm fiat, prepare some random tables per node and roll when the nodes are in their sight
- I think you’re right about making events or tables to make the scene feel alive and dynamic. We should focus on just the players and have story events announced to them as needed.
Haven’t tried it myself, but Wylock did a video on the mechanics of his own Neon Skies:
https://youtu.be/LlPeZI4ctvE
- I took a listen and it doesn’t address the issue of a large number of racers.
Only once or twice. I play it like combat. Every racer plays in initiative order and has a set of available actions and resources.
With twenty other racers, that sounds tedious to run. I'd be lazy and say the players, their nemesis, and a couple of other racers pull out ahead and hand wave the others out of the scene.
- I think this is the answer, we only care about the players and what’s happening around them.

13 comments